David Maybury | Blog

One of the fall outs from suffering a Shamrock Shake come-down was that I missed Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler in Dublin on Wednesday. (Those milkshakes have a lot to answer for). Those that made it to Eason’s on O’Connell street tell me that it was great and crikes am I jealous!

The Irish Independent had a story on the appearance yesterday - and report that the TV adaptation of the Gruffalo will be out later this year. There’ll be a host of merchandise to go with it - including - Gruffalo pyjamas. Consider this a very early plea for the PJ’s next christmas!

Two brilliant exhibitions in Dublin this weekend:

Aebhric from Mondrian’s Room gallery mailed to let me know about the Original Disney Studio Drawings from 1937-67 exhibit. A rare opportunity to see some of the original drawings from some the most celebrated of Disney classics, including ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ (1937), ‘Pinocchio’ (1940), ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (1951) and ‘The Jungle Book’ (1967).

You can see all of the illustrations online but this is one I’d recommend going to see (Mondrian’s Room is on South Anne Street and open from 11am - 6.30pm)

The second exhibition, Inklings, features one of my favourite Irish artists - Alan Clarke. (Who else?!) Alan appears with Gaetan Billault, Vanessa Donoso-Lopez and Anthony Collins in the Back Loft on St. Augustine Street from 12 until 8pm.

Plenty of eye candy to warm ye up before Christmas.

The Observer published the winners - and runners-up - for the Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story Prize. The Observer site has a whole heap of galleries so there’s plenty to ogle

Julian Hanshaw‘s winning short - Sand Dunes and Sonic Booms.

Emily Haworth-Booth’s short - What do married people talk about?

Isabel Greenberg’s short - Cheer up love, it’s only a credit crunch.

Some really great stuff - worth reading. Definitely.

The Guardian and Times UK both feature slide-shows at the minute. The Times have the winner (left) and runners-up from The Wind in the Willows cover competition (here)

The Guardian has 11 illustrations by Quentin Blake, Emily Gravett, Posy Simmonds, Axel Scheffler, David Roberts and Alexis Deacon, from The Birthday Book - to commemorate the Prince of Wales’s 60th birthday - edited by former children’s laureates Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake.

And JK Rowling wrote in the Guardian about the scene she chose for The Birthday Book - where Harry Potter goes to face the dementors.

The destinies of wizards and princes might seem more certain than those carved out for the rest of us, yet we all have to choose the manner in which we meet life: whether to live up (or down) to the expectations placed upon us; whether to act selfishly, or for the common good; whether to steer the course of our lives ourselves, or to allow ourselves to be buffeted around by chance and circumstance

It’s Wednesday and the world is busy with book launches, radio programmes and emails. Sorry for yet another link post:

> Dominic Wells in the UK Independent is watching the watchers as they watch the watchmen.
> The first of Neil Gaiman’s Irish interviews has appeared online. Hot Press are next and then Inis, I think.
> The Sunday Tribune has a look at fairy-tales too.
> John Carey looks at the history of illustration - with some worrying results - in Jenny Uglow’s new book.
> Malorie Blackman talks to Alison Flood from the Guardian about writing Noughts and Crosses.

The winner of the Observer Graphic Short Story Prize has been announced - Julian Hanshaw - for his “haunting, evocative and beautifully drawn story“.

The story will appear in next weeks Observer and Mr Hanshaw should be seeing a specially uniformed postman outside his door with a cheque for £1000 some time this week.

Looking forward to seeing it! More over on the Observer.

The mysteriously talented Mr Alan Clarke has an exhibition of paintings, sketches and other things in London opening next week - it opens on Wednesday and runs until 22 November in the Capital Culture Gallery.

If ye’re in the area (and even if you’re not) I highly recommend dropping in to have a snoop. (And if no one is looking maybe grab a painting or two - one for me, one for you)

Something nice and light for a post Culture Night morning. And I couldn’t think of anything better than a day spent with Babar - who features in the current New Yorker. There is an exhibition of Laurent de Brunhoff in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York with original artwork and sketches.

The New Yorker piece, here, comes complete with a slideshow of de Brunhoff’s work. Enjoy.

Two bits of good news for Cartoon Saloon - not too long ago (a week or three) the company landed a 52-episode deal with everyone’s favourite network for cartoons, Cartoon Network.

But it gets better….

This years illustration for the Children’s Books Festival is out - and guess who’s name is on the bottom? Tomm Moore of Cartoon Saloon. The poster looks great - the monsters, Dracula being my favourite, is frighteningly frightened.

I’m off galavanting in Sligo today and with long trips across country comes long hours of trawling through newspapers. A couple of highlights from 4 hours of sitting on a bus:

> Anthony Horowitz appears in the Irish Indepdent - interesting read and good interview by Julia Moloney.

> Alan Garner encourages the habtit of reading outside your age bracket in the Times (UK) - comes ahead of the The Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group Conference next week.

> Louise Tucker investigates the phenomenon of boys reading Shakespeare as a graphic novel but not in text on the Guardian Blog.

Mobile broadband… it even works on a bus trekking through the middle of nowhere in west coast Ireland.

The Observer’s graphic short story competition is back with an offering of £1000 and publication in the Observer Review. Check out last year’s winner, Catherine Brighton, for a start and then get the creative juices flowing. On the success of last year Brigthon had her first book published by MacMillan.

More info on the Guardian blog as well as a feature on Raymond Briggs - just to put it all into perspective I guess.

The new all singing, all dancing Tor.com site is up. Covering all things, Science Fiction-y, Fantasy-y and the rest of the Universe - with new stories from John Scalzi and Charles Stross. (If that doesn’t do it - have a look at the gallery)

Seen the Watchmen Trailer yet? Alan Moore has an interview about the new movie here. (via FP blog.) The first question sets the mood pretty well:

Don’t you have the slightest curiosity about what Watchmen director Zack Snyder is doing with your work?

I would rather not know.

News broke this morning that the legendary and brilliant Tasha Tudor died on Wednesday. Reknowned across the US for her book illustrations and artwork, I am (and others might too) be most familiar with her illustrated edition of The Night Before Christmas (it was the first time I came across her as a kid).

More about Tasha on her family website and this mornings note in the New York Times.

From the pages of Scamp comes the news that Patrick Lynch’s comic Last Bus is being launched tonight at half seven in the Stags Head. According to Senor Lynch himself it deals with ’such weighty themes as public transport, street violence, dream logic and absent friends.’

I’m kicking myself that I can’t make it.

Although, rumour has it that the Stags Head is downright creepy these days anyway. Looking forward to seeing the comic though.

Have you heard about the 2D Comics Festival yet?*

The what festival?
It’s a two day (Friday - Saturday) comic festival hosted by the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry.

Uh-huh. Comics.
Yeah, seriously. Comics. Who doesn’t love superheroes at some stage? And it is proving a great way to get younger male readers interested in books. In fact, Verbal Arts are running a special day of workshops as part of the festival just for schools.

Okay. So when is it again?
It runs from Friday June 6th till Saturday 7th. In the Verbal Arts Centre.

And is there anyone famous lined up?
Well. Now that you mention it. Alan Martin is going to be there. I think Rufus Dayglo, David Hine, Simon Furman and Mark Stafford are all going to be there too.

Right. I don’t recognize any of these names. Should I?
Too right you should. Head over to the 2D website and have a read. Then book your train ticket.

I think I will.
Good. You do that.

Fine.
Fine.

More about the 2D Comics Festival here. And in issue 14 of Verbal Magazine.

*Conversation may never have happened.

Last night saw the (re?)launch of O’Brien Press’ award winning and successful poetry anthology Something Beginning with P.

Click on the image for a better look >>>

The new paperback edition follows the original four years later with no changes to the text - it is still edited by Seamus Cashman and it still brings some of Ireland’s best poets together alongside the artwork of Alan Clarke, Corrina Askin and Emma Page.

The poems move from funny to sad, poignant, mythological and farcical but each one of them is brought to life by the imaginative and fantastic illustrations that appear on every page. I couldn’t recommend a better anthology of Irish poetry for children.

After some technical glitches, Achockablog is back.

With a nice link to some more of Roberto Innocenti’s illustrations.

I’m a bit late on this one, Scamp spotted this a few weeks ago: The book Colourful Illustrations 93°C (pictured) features a rake of stolen artwork and interviews from the LCS website, as well as work directly lifted from a few artists personal sites. More about the book on Apefluff.

PLEASE DO NOT BUY THE BOOK

I’m late getting to this: The Carnegie Medal shortlist was announced somewhere in mid-April. The award goes to an outstanding book for children and young people, first published in the UK.

This year’s shortlist is:

Kevin Crossley-Holland | Gatty’s Tale
Linzi Glass | Ruby Red
Elizabeth Laird | Crusade
Tanya Landman | Apache
Philip Reeve | Here Lies Arthur
Meg Rossoff | What I Was
Jenny Valentine | Finding Violet Park

There are a few titles I have read, What I Was and Crusade, some names I have read before, Philip Reeve and Kevin Crossley-Holland, and others who are new to me. As with all awards, I’m surprised not see some names up there - David Almond, Derek Landy and Siobhan Dowd’s London Eye Mystery.

The Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist on the other-hand is spot on, with only Oliver Jeffers missing. Some of the year’s best books are listed - including two from the brilliant Emily Gravett.

Anthony Browne| Silly Billy
Polly Dunbar | Penguin
Emily Gravett | Little Mouse’s Book of Big Fears
Emily Gravett | Monkey and Me
Jane Ray (Text by Carol Ann Duffy) | The Lost Happy Endings
Chris Riddel | Ottoline and the Yellow Cat
Ed Vere| Banana!

An article from the Economist on the difficulties in publishing picture books:

Not all are quite so gloomy. Booktrust, a charity, has launched the Big Picture campaign to raise the profile of picture books. At the Illustration Cupboard, a London gallery, John Huddy reckons the market is correcting itself, rooting out inadequate contenders. Panicky book folk may be talking their business down—but new ways to sell cheaper products across borders must certainly loom.

Time for a new kind of picture book? More on picture books here.